Professor Ayres has been a columnist forForbesmagazine, a commentator on public radio’sMarketplace, and a contributor to the New York Times'Freakonomics Blog. His research has been featured on PrimeTime Live, Oprah and Good Morning America and in Time and Vogue magazines.

Ian is a co-founder ofstickK.com, a web site that helps you stick to your goals.

In an Illinois post-conviction proceeding, Ayres helped convince a court to vacate his client's death sentence.

In 2006, he was elected to theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences. His book with Greg Klass,Insincere Promises: The Law of Misrepresented Intent, won the 2006 Scribes book award "for the best work of legal scholarship published during the previous year." Professor Ayres has been ranked as one of the most prolific and most-cited law professors of his generation. See James Lindgren & Daniel Seltzer, The Most Prolific Law Professors and Faculties, 71 CHI.-KENT L. REV. 781 (1996); Fred R. Shapiro, The Most-Cited Legal Scholars, 29 J. LEGAL STUD. 409 (2000). The Chronicle of Higher Education referred to Ayres as “a law-and-economics guru.”

He was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, received his B.A. (majoring in Russian studies and economics) and J.D. from Yale and his Ph.D in economics from M.I.T. Professor Ayres clerked for the Honorable James K. Logan of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. He has previously taught at Harvard, Illinois, Northwestern, Stanford and Virginia law schools and has been a research fellow of the American Bar Foundation. From 2002 to 2009, he was the editor of the Journal of Law, Economics and Organization.

William K. Townsend Professor of Law Ian Ayres ’86 and adjunct professor Richard Brooks are mentioned in an article about Fisher v. University of Texas, a challenge to race-conscious admissions policy currently before the Supreme Court.

A year after launching its Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) on Coursera, Yale is offering a new set of “on-demand” MOOCs. Ian Ayres ’86, William K. Townsend Professor of Law, is teaching one of the courses, titled “A Law Student’s Toolkit.”

Ian Ayres ’86 is the William K. Townsend Professor of Law at Yale Law School and Amy Kapczynski ’03 is an Associate Professor of Law at Yale Law School and director of the Global Health Justice Partnership.

Ian Ayres ’86 is the William K. Townsend Professor of Law at Yale Law School and Amy Kapczynski ’03 is an Associate Professor of Law at Yale Law School and director of the Global Health Justice Partnership.

On May 11, 2005, Ian Ayres's new book, Insincere Promises will be released--an exciting moment for any author. Less than three weeks later, his next new book, Straightforward, will come out, relegating Insincere Promises to the heap where his five other old books sit. Then, after only a month, yet another Ayres tome, Optional Law, will make its debut, bumping its two siblings down. "It's an amazing time for me," says Ayres.